“For many reasons we do not wish to see Enbridge oil line across the lands o waters and habitat tosheries. What I’m talking about here, in the watershed here is all the spawning habitats going on rightnow. I make my living o sheries, as we said back then. Now, some o these are some o the reasonsthat get our tribe worried, concerned. Te oil tankers on the coast have much risk. We have all the risk.I’ll just go -- some o the examples, just since January 12th, the ood chain that has happened already.It’s one o the major things that has happened already. Since you were here starting February 1st, theeulachon run had come all up and down the coast. Ours was February 21st, it ran or a month. Tat oneis done. Te herring spawn has just nished just about a month ago. Tere’s still -- there’s some o theherring spawn down the coast by Gomas (ph) and down Lax Kw’alaams way; that is still there yet. Andthis weekend and or the past two weeks, we’re engaged in harvest -- seaweed harvest. And that’s thesea prunes -- you remember what I was talking about, and the abalone goes around there, too, and allthe other things in that habitat. Tat’s what’s happening right now. And the clams that were going onwhen you were here in January 12th; the salmon is just about coming in. So these are just some o theconcerns that as our tribe -- some o the acts that we’re concerned about at the risk here, absorbing allthe risk that they’re going to possibly harm all this.

– Chief Don Roberts, Kitsumkalum Band

“I am rom Scotland, and or a time lived beside a salmon river, the River Dee. Te River Dee runs -- thevalley the River Dee runs through is known as Royal Dee Side, as Balmoral Castle is in the valley. TeDee rises in the Cairngorm Mountains and ows out to the North Sea through Aberdeen. Te RiverDee is not as prolic a salmon river as the Skeena, but it is also internationally amous or salmonshing. o sh on the Dee, you pay per rod per day, and it is expensive. Te Dee is divided into stretchesor beats, and these are privately owned. I distinctly remember in the 1960s beats being sold or sixgures, pounds, mind you, or only a ew miles. Here we have the Skeena, also a world-renownedsalmon shing river, with a dierent type o splendour, a rugged splendour. And apart rom a shinglicence, you are ree to sh the length o the river in season. No one in their right mind would considerrunning pipelines as the proposed Northern Gateway through or beside the River Dee, yet here we areconsidering just that very thing or the Skeena and her tributaries.”

– Ken Beddie

Joint Review Panel HearingsTerrace, B.C. May 7-9, 2012

Te National Energy Board’s Joint Review Panel (JRP) community hearings began inerrace on May 7, 2012. In an attempt to provide you with a sense of what is beingsaid at these hearings, we have selected excerpts from some of those presentationsand will continue to do so through to the end of the hearings in July. For those of youwishing to read the complete text of a statement, it is available on the JRP website:gatewaypanel.review-examen.gc.ca/clf-nsi/prtcptngprcss/hrng-eng.html

“I’m really upset about the possibility o system errors related to the pipeline. Tese errors are muchmore common when money issues or ideology or plain old saving ace trump science and engineering.Tis is occurring at the moment. Te government doesn’t want to hear valid objection, muzzles itsown scientists at conerences or inquiries and brands objectors as terrorists or un-Canadian. Canadian journalists have gotten international awards or exposing this.”

– Dr. Patrick Butler

“So we created a program called Youth on Water. And it’ll be theourth year o this program. And we will have hundreds o youngpeople by the end o this ourth year who have come with us andtravelled on these dierent rivers, rivers o the Skeena watershed.So I’m talking about the Bulkley. I’m talking about the elkwa.I’m talking about the Zymoetz or the Copper River. I’m talkingabout Kitsumkalum River, the Skeena River, all o these magicaland spectacular rivers. Tere’s a risk with this pipeline, and I’mnervous that these young people won’t have the opportunity todo what I’ve done. I this pipeline goes through, and there is aspill or a leak which I think is a statistical probability, they willnot be able to share with their children and grandchildren theopportunities that I’ve been able to share with them. Like I said,this is one o the last great wild salmon ecosystems in the world.We can’t risk taking away that right that uture generationshave to see those bears and those eagles eeding on salmonand to watch caribou come down to the river. Tis is -- that’s anopportunity that isn’t mine to choose to give away or the sake o money.”

– Christopher Gee

“Let’s look at this pipeline rom a dierent angle, rom a purely economic point o view. I the aim isto make as much prot or Canada as possible, then we’re also going about it all wrong. Te reason weare shipping this oil out o Canada is that we apparently lack the inrastructure to rene it here. I havea hard time believing that $5.5 billion would not buy enough o that inrastructure to at least get usstarted. Imagine the prots i Canada became an oil-rening nation. In the long-term that would makeus ar more money than we would ever get by piping raw crude away rom here as ast as we can. Nomatter how I ponder this pipeline, it seems like a concerted eort to ail completely and utterly to thinkin the long-term. It looks like the stakeholders in this undertaking clearly do not think about the healtho our country, not its human population, never mind any other creatures. Tey also clearly do notconsider about long-term prots.”

– Inke Giannelia

“It took Mother Earth over two billion years to reach the maturitythat she had so that she could sustain us and it’s only taking manless than 100 years to take that all away rom her.Not only have the warning signs been given to us by MotherEarth hersel but many scientists have been attempting to warnthe world. Just a year ago a group o scientists approached theUnited Nations to warn them o the conditions o the oceans;that i we don’t stop what we are doing, overshing, pollutingwith garbage and human waste and oil spills, there is not muchchance or those oceans to survive. Tey are in such seriouscondition. Dr. David Suzuki has warned us on many occasionsthat i we don’t change our practices, stop all the polluting andextraction o all o the orest, minerals and ossil uels takingplace throughout the globe, man may have very little time let onthis planet.”

– Aaron Greycloud

“We’re told that potential spills will be treated with state-o-the-art technology, yet the technology that was used in Valdezin 1989 is essentially the same technology that’s used today inoil spills, disperse, skim and burn. Burning depends on goodweather, yet the proposed tanker route has some o the worstweather in the world. We’re told the clean-up o 20 percent o an oil spill is considered a success, with 80 percent remaining topoison wildlie and lie generations beneath gravel beaches.”

– Anne Hill

“I am not unded by any group or individual to speak at this hearing. I came here o my own accordbecause I think it’s important to protect this part o the world that I have made my home. I am neithera radical nor an enemy o the country, as has been implied by critics o those who oppose us. As a highschool social studies teacher, I nd it quite alarming to be labelled such things merely because I haveasked questions and have come to my own conclusion that this project is not, and I quote, ‘an urgentmatter o Canada’s national interest,’ but, rather, a direct threat to the Pacic Northwest.”